I'm a Phoenix Suns fan and a bit of a Cleveland Cavaliers fan, Orlando Magic fan, and somewhat of a Portland Trail Blazers fan.

I'm a former Sacramento Kings fan, and my least favorite team is the Los Angeles Lakers.

This has been an incredible year in the NBA with the rise of the Celtics the huge surprises out West with the Lakers taking the #1 seed and the Hornets having an incredible season, etc.

So, who gets your nod for MVP?

There is a lot of talk about Chris Paul and he would be an excellent choice, but I hate to admit it, but "I" think the MVP should go to my least favorite player, Kobe Bryant. What he did with the Lakers and his own stats, was pretty incredible!

You could argue that Kevin Garnett or someone on the Celtics should get it or even Labron James purely based on stats, but I gotta give it to Kobe for taking the Lakers to #1, surprising pretty much everyone when you consider how strong the west is with San Antonio, Utah, Phoenix, Dallas, etc.

I actually think it is pretty close between Kobe and Chris Paul.....I mean, sure, the Laker finished #1 but they were like #4 just a couple of weeks ago, the the West, the standings literally changed daily. I think teams ranked 1-6 were separated by under 5 games, possibly as close as 2-3 games, any time could have taken the West, and I thought Paul's team was going to, since they were in first for the final week of the season until a few late season losses......and considering what New Orleans has been through, he changed that city, that team and his own stats.

That being said....after 12 years, give the damn thing to Kobe already!

Its Garnet. He gets my vote. You need to read this article if you dont think so:

If you dont have time to read the whole this its basically stating that although Garnett didnt have the most points, or etc etc, he still should be. With Kevin Garnett on the Celtics, he turned the complete team around. They no longer care for stats, its a team game again. He added so much to the team, that thats the only reason why the are top seed in the East for the Playoffs. Read below... It may change your mind.

At least read the second paragraph. Maybe the third. It shows why

From ESPN:

Let's get the bad stuff out of the way so you don't think this is a homer vote: I don't think Garnett is the most talented player in the league; I don't trust him at the end of games because he gets too wound up; it drives me crazy that he relies on his fall-away so much (especially in fourth quarters); and I'd rather have Tim Duncan for a playoff series if my life depended on it. Of course, none of that stuff matters in an MVP discussion. He's the one guy everyone will remember from this regular season (sorry, Kobe) and he was worth a 30-win swing to the Celtics this season. In other words, he's the first choice for two of my three MVP questions.

But that's not why I'm picking him. On May 22, professional basketball was effectively murdered in Boston. Garnett transformed every single facet of the franchise upon his arrival, from playing for the Celtics to coaching them to following them to owning them to working for them. What he did can't be measured by statistics; it can't even be measured in a few paragraphs like the section you're reading right now. It would belittle what he did. He transformed the culture of the team. He taught everyone to care about defense, to care about practice, to care about being a professional, to care about leaving everything they had on the court, to stop caring about stats and start caring about wins. He single-handedly transformed the careers of three young players (Rajon Rondo, Leon Powe and Kendrick Perkins), one veteran (Pierce) and one coach (Doc Rivers), all five of whom could have gone the other way. He played every exhibition game like it was the seventh game of the Finals. During blowouts, he stood on the sidelines and cheered on his teammates like it was a tight game; because of that, the bench guys did the same thing for the starters and basically turned into a bunch of giddy scrubs on a 14-seed in a March Madness upset during every game.

The best word for him would either be "contagious" or "selfless." By Thanksgiving, the entire team was emulating him. Every time a young player got carried away with himself during a game -- like the time Perkins started going for his own stats or the time Rondo snapped at his coach -- KG was there to set him straight and scare the living hell out him. Every time one of his teammates was intimidated, KG had his back. Every time one of his teammates got knocked down, KG rushed over to pick him up; eventually, four teammates were rushing over to help that fifth guy up, and that's just the way it goes with the team now. Every time an opponent kept going for a shot after a whistle, KG defiantly blocked the shot just out of principle. Eventually, everyone started doing it. No shots after the whistle against the Celtics. That was the rule. It was a series of little things, baby steps if you will, but they added up to something much bigger.

You can't measure Garnett's impact with individual statistics, but these numbers seem pretty relevant: 24 (number of '07 Celtics wins); 16 (number of '08 Celtics losses); four (number of useful free agents who signed with Boston after the KG trade); 0 (number of useful free agents who signed with Boston in the 15 years before that); 10.2 (Boston's point differential this season, an historic number); three (number of Texas teams they beat on the road in a four-day span, as well as the Celtics' total number of double-digit defeats this season); 4,753 (estimated number of teammate hugs during games this season, shattering the record of the '84 Lakers); 42 (field-goal percentage for Boston opponents this season); 41 (number of home sellouts this season); and 3-to-2 (the Celtics' odds to win the 2008 title).

Look at the Celtics last season and look at them this season. Does any of the good stuff happen without Garnett? Any of it? Maybe his MVP campaign lost some steam when he missed 10 games earlier in the season; I have to admit, even I shifted my attention toward Kobe, Paul and LeBron these past two months. During a conversation with my father last weekend, I mentioned the MVP "argument" and he quickly responded with a fired-up rant that was very unlike my Pops. I'll do my best to paraphrase it:

"Argument? There's no argument, it's Garnett. I went to almost every home game. He's standing on the bench screaming for his teammates when we're up 30 points. He's a maniac! A few weeks ago, I couldn't go to a Wednesday night game so I put my tickets online and they sold in four minutes. Four minutes! Last year, I would have been walking around my office asking if anyone wanted to go, and I would have probably ended up eating the tickets. This year? Four minutes. Who did more for a team in one year? We lost 18 straight games last season. We were nothing. Didn't you watch the games? How could anyone be more valuable than KG was this season?"

It's a great question, and since I couldn't answer it without sounding like a fool, Kevin Garnett gets my MVP vote for 2007-08. Just remember, the "V" stands for "valuable."

I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations and you're not in this world to live up to mine. ~Bruce Lee